


Oh my darling, won't you stand by me?

by PoorWendy



Series: And we'll never be lonely anymore [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Weddings, generally more of the same, like the most fleeting of fleeting mentions of drugs for real, very brief recreational drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 06:22:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10985184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoorWendy/pseuds/PoorWendy
Summary: One bassline seems to follow them through the years, breaking them both and putting them back together over and over.





	Oh my darling, won't you stand by me?

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from Spyder Turner's "Stand By Me."

**2008, EAMES**

 

As he stands behind their apartment's makeshift bar where his laptop is set up, Eames can't help but be proud of himself.

He remembers the Arthur that he met last year, and he sees the Arthur out there dancing to "Beautiful Girls" right now, and of course, they're really the _same_ Arthur, but still, Eames is just far too cocky not to deem himself personally responsible for the wonderful sight before him.

Too cocky, and drunk, and high on this party (and the beginning of the joint he passed off into the crowd of dancers that never made its way back to him).

And this fucking _song_. God, does Eames love this song. The thing is, Eames really loved "Stand By Me" when he was a teenager. And he loves it now, but there was also once a point when he'd listened to it so many times that he sometimes worried he'd reached capacity for it. He'd played it on repeat until he'd killed it. Destroyed it. _Mutilated_ it to the point where he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to hear it again.

And then Sean Kingston came out with "Beautiful Girls" last year, and suddenly the world erupted with the vibrations of "Stand By Me." Suddenly, the bassline would haunt him and follow him around campus, floating out of car windows, playing in shops and on the studio radio and at every party they went to.

Remixes. Mash-ups. Endless new verses and voices over his same, once-beloved beat. He hated them all for about a day. And then he loved every one of them. He collected all the versions of it that he could find. He even forgave "Stand By Me," and fell right back in love with that too.

Arthur, on the other hand, has complained about "Beautiful Girls" a lot. Arthur grew tired of it, he's said, before Eames even warmed up to it.

And yet, there he is, nearly hidden in a sea of people (but, of course, Eames keeps tabs on Arthur. How can you _not_ keep your eyes on Arthur all night long?), dancing and sweating and rapping along perfectly with Lil Boosie to the remix.

Arthur only puts on this kind of show in a sea of people. Eames knows that. Arthur can only dedicate himself unabashedly to something like this when there are fifty people swarming around him doing the same thing. Eames can't be sure whether Arthur thinks nobody is watching, or has actually reached a point where he doesn't care.

Whatever the case, he's out there with Masha and Ariadne, and Yusuf, who's managing to keep up. They're all shouting along with the music, but Eames only watches Arthur's smile, his lips as they fire rapidly, _"Face like a model; shape like a bottle. Every time I see you, I-I just wanna be by your si-side..."_

Eames smiles, and turns back to his playlist while his heart goes about doing that thing it always does around Arthur—it breaks and it mends and it weeps and it struggles to keep up with the rhythm that Arthur's is pounding.

 

 

**2009, ARTHUR**

 

He hears it in the bar.

He convinced the owner to get a satellite radio subscription months ago. It was an instant hit with the staff and customers alike. And, of course, Arthur got to watch Eames smile the first time he'd walked in and heard the sixties station playing.

Tonight, it's slow. It's late. Arthur's having trouble keeping himself busy. And then, on comes a version of "Stand By Me" that he's never heard before.

It's nice at first. Simple, but soulful, and the beat a little lazier than Ben E. King's original, maybe even verging on loungey. The lyrics even differ a little, in an endearing and sort of improvisational way. It's like you can really imagine this guy is playing with a band somewhere in the back of the restaurant.

But what really catches Arthur's attention is what happens about two minutes in. The singer starts an impression of Jackie Wilson. Arthur thinks he remembers Jackie Wilson. Eames adores several of his songs, like the one about the pillow that’ll never dry of teardrops, or that _really_ upbeat one that’s in _Notting Hill_ , or the one with the ridiculous title Arthur can never remember, except for a lot of rolling Rs.

And then, the singer is doing an impression of James Brown, calling out that incomparable, unmistakable, "Ow!"

The impressions keep coming. The Temptations, Sam Cooke, and others Arthur isn't sure that he knows. But he's _positive_ that Eames would. He wishes Eames was here right now, because Eames would love this song.

Eames _will_ love this song, if he doesn't already. Arthur knows that all the odds are on Eames knowing this song—knowing it, and loving it, and owning it. Arthur's never managed to introduce Eames to a song he hasn't already heard, even though he's _really_ been trying ever since he started listening to the sixties station at work. And Lord knows Eames has enough versions and samples of "Stand By Me" as it is...

Arthur wanders to the spot behind the bar where the radio display is tucked just beneath the counter.

        "Stand By Me" ('67)  
        Spyder Turner

Arthur writes it down on a napkin and tucks it away into his pocket before going back to work.

Then the song ends, and the DJ, Cousin Brucie, comes howling back on the air from a studio somewhere in New York, and Arthur tries not to think too hard about what Eames' face'll look like when Arthur plays him that song.

\---

Eames comes home from class the next day sometime around three, but Arthur doesn't mention the song until at least an hour later, after Ariadne's left for Psych. Ariadne would probably like the song, too, but Arthur's greedy about having found something so special to share with Eames. He wants it all to himself.

Arthur's lying on the couch, while Eames is clicking around on TV, melted into an armchair. He finds _Leave it to Beaver_ and they laugh about it for a few minutes.

Then Arthur swallows. "Hey," he says, turning over onto his stomach so he can look at Eames from over the arm of the couch. "I heard a song last night."

Eames turns from the TV to Arthur, slowly registering something besides the lily-white Cleaver family. He smiles. His eyes wrinkle. His nose does too. "Oh? What kind of song?"

"An old song," Arthur answers. "A cover of 'Stand By Me.'"

There's a certain light in Eames' eyes then. A _challenge_. "Whose cover?" He's looking forward to saying he already knows it, Arthur can tell.

"This guy Spyder Turner," Arthur says. Eames tries to twist his mouth up into a pout, then, but his grin just won't let it. It rarely does. "Do you know him?" Arthur asks, just to rub it in.

Eames shakes his head, surrendering. "I don't think I do."

Arthur pushes himself up on the couch so that he's kneeling on the center cushion. "Here," he says, reaching for his laptop. He was planning to sink back into the corner of the couch, but Eames is already plopping down there himself, craning his neck to see the computer screen. "I'm sure there's no video to see," Arthur says, something rumbling in his torso with Eames sitting so close.

"Whatever," Eames mumbles through his smile.

They don't say anything else until the Youtube video starts. It's just a photo of the single's cover, as Arthur expected. Eames stares at it anyhow. He stares almost past it, unfocused, as he listens.

Eames moves his head back and forth slightly, raises one shoulder or the other here and there, still slumped in his seat. But when Spyder Turner says, "You know, a friend of mine, Jackie Wilson, might say..." Eames sits bolt upright.

He lights up anew with every impression, twisting and turning in his seat. He can't hold it all back. "He's amazing! Where did you find this, Arthur?"

Arthur grins proudly as he ignores the feeling of his god damn heart melting through the cracks in his ribs at the sound of Eames saying his name. "It was on the _'60s on 6_ last night at work. I was hoping you hadn't heard it."

They've somehow gotten very close. Eames is like that, a close-sitter. When they're beside each other on the couch, Arthur always ends up slumped against him, their arms flattening against each other, their weights converging at the point where their shoulders meet. Eames is always warm. There was a period of time where Arthur pulled away from this kind of sitting, too nervous to really face the feeling of Eames against him. It didn't last long.

Once Spyder Turner abandons his impressions and announces, “But my name is Spyder Turner and I’ll get down on my knees and say… _Daaaaaaaarlin’, don’t go!”_ Eames is full-on _wiggling_ with delight. It does nothing to calm Arthur’s nerves but, then, Arthur’s come to find a strange comfort and satisfaction in the way Eames sets his nerves to sparking. It’s the best way he can ever remember feeling so decidedly _not_ at ease.

 

 

**2010, ARTHUR**

 

Arthur storms up the steps, clumsy and drunk, to his host family's flat in Paris.

It's rude, of course. But it's two o'clock in the morning, and his host family are either heavy sleepers, or they're just too polite to complain. He goes to the bathroom (more for insurance than immediate need), then stumbles into his room.

He goes to war with his tangled mass of headphones.

He plugs them into his laptop and forces them onto his head and over his ears.

Then, Arthur goes to Youtube and makes a playlist of all the songs that remind him of Eames—all the songs that will really crunch his drunk and broken heart.

Eames, a thousand miles away. An ocean away.

And even if he _weren't_.

Arthur sobs into a pillow and listens to Brooke Benton, to Edith Piaf, to Dusty Springfield and Connie Francis, adding song upon song to a playlist he'll never get through before passing out. He adds almost everything he can think of before he remembers Spyder Turner.

He adds the song, "Stand By Me," and moves it to the front of the queue.

As soon as it begins, it's comforting and soft and it's excruciating and deafening and Arthur's positive that even his pillow couldn't be enough to keep his ugly, heaving sobs from his host family's ears.

But he's feeling so drunk and so desolate that he really doesn't care, or if he does, he still doesn't have the strength to stop.

Spyder Turner is pleading, _"Baby, baby, baby... Oh my darlin', won't you stand by me?"_ And Arthur is imagining Eames swaying along to the beat from his post behind the bar back in their apartment. _His_ apartment, Arthur reminds himself, crying harder and harder.

Arthur imagines Eames smiling, surrounded by people, probably forgetting that Arthur's even gone.

 

 

**2010, EAMES**

 

When Arthur's gone, Eames is devastated.

It's not as if Eames always sees Arthur every day. (Except he does. He really does see Arthur every day.)

It's not as if, even when Eames does see Arthur, he ever expects it to surpass their normal bounds of friendship. (Except, yes, he does. His stupid heart does stupidly cling to that fantasy.)

But even so, it's killing him to know he won't be catching a glimpse of Arthur, asleep on their couch some weekend morning; Arthur, walking through the door, laughing at Ariadne; Arthur, scrambling to pay for dinner so as not to take their hospitality for granted.

The apartment feels all-wrong without him there. Eames feels all-wrong without him there.

He stays in his studio for longer hours. He works hard overtime with the landscaping company. And when he's done all that, he often heads to the library, sulking through the stacks, reading 'til it feels like his eyes are going to fall out, all to avoid facing an Arthur-less apartment.

He compiles what feel like endless, hopeless playlists. They feel like they're a part of his blue period, even the songs that would pass for happy, if Arthur was just _here_. But instead they all just sound lonely.

One night, while he's alone in his room, he's listening to music, his iPod connected by an ancient tape-adapter to his even more ancient boombox. While he's listening, "Stand By Me" comes on shuffle. It's the one that Arthur played for him last year. Eames sits at his desk, staring blankly ahead while Spyder Turner warbles, _"...do you love me, like you say you do? If you love me won't you touch my hand..."_

Eames blinks too hard. Everything hits him too quickly, and before he realizes it, he's shoving the boombox off his desk.

It falls to the floor but the music doesn't stop, so Eames yanks the cable out of his iPod's headphone jack, as if shutting Spyder's voice out will somehow ease the weight of everything that feels like it's sitting on Eames' chest.

It doesn't help. Nothing helps.

Eames is devastated.

 

 

**2012, ARTHUR**

 

It's not Arthur's first alumni event.

It's just his first one as part of the alumni.

And it does not disappoint. Arthur almost feels bad about being wined and dined because there's really no way in hell he's going to donate to the school, even if he might not be brash enough to take a page from Ariadne’s playbook and pick up the soliciting phone calls from poor undergrad students, hollering, "What, _four years' tuition_ wasn't enough?"

There's a banquet tonight in one of the older halls on campus. Arthur, Ariadne, Emma, Masha, Yusuf, and Eames are all together. Yusuf and Eames had to be practically dragged here, actually, because they heard thumping bass wafting from one of the suites en route, and they looked like they had an actual physical need to follow it.

Eames is mostly done complaining now that the a capella groups have finished performing. Arthur's always surprised that Eames isn't more interested in the a capella groups, what with all the other corny old music he loves so well. "It has no soul," Eames has explained many times.

As the men's group shuffles off, even Ariadne (who was actually _in_ the female a capella group for a semester or two) is complaining that they're still performing "Brown Eyed Girl."

"I used to love that song and those bastards ruined it for me. Now I can't hear it without fighting the overwhelming urge to burn down a gymnasium."

Arthur laughs as the student jazz band takes the stage behind which the a capella groups had performed.

Once they're settled and they begin to play, people go from standing and sipping champagne to falling in toward the center of the room, pairing off, or dancing along in groups.

"This is 'But Not For Me!'" Eames declares excitedly once the singer's uttered two syllables.

Arthur laughs at him. Yusuf mutters, "How old do they think we are?" An older woman nearby turns to thin her eyes at him, and Yusuf frowns slightly in some effort toward apology, Arthur guesses.

"Nonsense," Eames says to Yusuf, but he's looking more at the woman. "This music is _ageless_ ," he says with a positively crippling grin.

The woman turns away but Arthur thinks she might be trying to bury a smile. Eames is charismatic enough to charm just about anybody in time, but older women especially don't stand a fucking chance.

Arthur thinks for a split second about how badly he'd like to ask Eames to dance, but he turns away, remembering himself. No matter how close and beautiful and beaming he is, it doesn't change anything.

 _"...But not for me..."_ the singer croons at the end of the song. Arthur wrinkles his nose at her as if she chose the lyrics based on his sad inner-monolgue.

But, of course, he claps along with everybody else. She deserves it, really. She's very small, not much taller than Ariadne. The voice pouring out of her body is unreal, filling up the hall and somehow both blending with the music and towering over it.

The next song begins and Eames lights up all over again, looking inexplicably over at Arthur even though he's dancing with Emma now. _"If I didn't care..."_ he's mouthing along with the singer.

Arthur holds a hand out to Masha and the two of them dance as well, now in a little crowd with Yusuf and Ariadne and Emma and Eames.

After about twenty minutes of dancing and chatting like this, even Eames is getting fidgety. They all make their way back to the table where they ate and collect their jackets and coats and purses.

Arthur and Eames are standing beside each other, Arthur straightening his cufflinks, Eames pounding the remainder of his glass of champagne, when another song starts.

Even Arthur knows this one at the first plunk of the bass.

When he looks to his right, Eames' smile is already a thousand miles wide. Now, more than ever, Arthur just wants to ask him to dance. Would it even be that strange?

Ugh. Of course it would. Even if it didn't start out strange, it wouldn't take long to get there with Arthur a little tipsy and everyone dressed so nicely and Eames looking as beautiful as ever.

" _When the night has come... And the land is dark... And the moon is the only light we'll see..._ " the singer starts, soulful and low and perfect.

The drummer taps out the familiar beat on his kit, and Arthur notices that this sounds almost more like the version that he played for Eames than it does the original.

Eames is swaying a little where he stands, and even though Ariadne and Yusuf and everyone else are starting to look impatient by the exit, Eames is making no sign yet of joining them, and Arthur is just tipsy enough to indulge himself.

So he does all he can and just sort of sways along beside him. Eames grins and bumps his shoulder into Arthur's.

"It reminds me of the other version," Eames whispers into Arthur's ear. "The Spyder Turner one."

Arthur nods, and savors the feel of Eames' breath on his ear, and is barely aware as he responds, "It's because it's so jazzy."

They finally make their way back across the hall as the song winds down.

They hang back a few steps behind the others as they walk across campus, following the sound of blaring music down the long path to the suites. Eames is humming and intermittently uttering unprovoked snippets of Spyder Turner's impressions.

"You really love that one, don't you?" Arthur says, looking at the ground but still smiling far too wide.

Eames hooks an arm around Arthur's neck and pulls him in too tight as they walk. "Best gift you ever gave me," he says. Then he starts singing, " _Darling, youuu send me... And you know that I know that you know that I know thatyouknowthatIknowthatyouknowthatIknowthateverything is gonna be aaaalright,_ " quickly and obnoxiously and too enthusiastically and Arthur wishes he'd never stop.

 

 

**2015, EAMES**

 

Arthur's putting Eames through the ringer today. You wait eight years to hold a person, and he keeps you waiting still?

But, it's been a beautiful day, anyway. Arthur is beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful he's ever been.

Oh, and Ariadne, too. She and Yusuf are beautiful, surely. They ought to be; it's their wedding day.

Now, they're dancing, along with half the guests of the wedding reception, Arthur included. He's over there with all of them—Yusuf, Ariadne, Asher, Emma, Masha (who's even gotten Fischer onto the floor)... Eames ought to abandon his post at the podium for a few minutes to join them all. The decision is all but made for him when he notices what's coming up in the queue in just a few minutes.

Spyder Turner's "Stand By Me."

It's been one of Eames' favorites since he heard it—the first time Arthur showed Eames a song he didn't already own.

Eames waits around until the familiar bass and cymbals start to fill the room. He glances to Arthur, and what he sees is unforgettable.

Arthur's eyes light up. His smile unfolds from the center of his mouth until it's pushing the other parts of his face away, until his eyes disappear entirely.

It's one of those smiles where Eames can see past so many years, straight through to the boy Arthur once had to be. Lighting up like Christmas morning, like seeing fireworks, like feeling the ocean for the first time.

Eames feels his heart pulled on strings to the place where they're all dancing. He doesn't get too close to Arthur—he can't yet. But then Ariadne's reaching out for him once he's close enough, and then he even feels Emma wrap her arms around him from behind, squeezing him fondly, too tight with the strength of memories from when they were young.

So they do what they've always done—all of them. They fall into a crowd, dancing, none of them quite together, none of them quite apart, twirling and twisting with painstaking imprecision, like atoms making up molecules without even trying.

 

 

**2015, ARTHUR**

 

Eames looks him with excited eyes, looking like too many happy realizations are hitting him all at once, but elated nevertheless.

He's got the look because one of his favorite mashups is on. It's only just begun but Arthur remembers the impending combination of songs, because Eames played it a million times in college. It's "Stand By Me" and "Beautiful Girls," plus Snow Patrol and Puff Daddy and more. It's irresistibly upbeat, almost ethereal.

"I remember this!" Ariadne says between shots at the pong table. Arthur and Eames have been hovering beside her and Yusuf for a while.

"How could you not?" Arthur says, shouting over the music.

Yusuf sinks a shot, and they all cheer accordingly, losing themselves in the game again, albeit briefly as Ariadne makes the same cup as Yusuf—the last cup, winning the game.

"What is this guitar from?" Ariadne shouts to Eames. Eames shrugs at her animatedly.

"It's from fucking _90210!_ ", Arthur shouts to her.

Eames lights up. "It _is_?" he asks, then, "How do you even _know_ that?" He grabs hold of Arthur's tie and tugs on it softly, fondly.

Arthur shouts back, "How do you _not_ know that, oh devout consumer of American pop-culture?"

"He has a point, man," Yusuf yells.

"How long have you known this?" Eames asks Arthur now, his voice thankfully down to a low roar, as he's moved next to Arthur's ear.

Arthur leans in to Eames. "How long have I known that the guitar is from _90210?_ " He leans back to see Eames nod, then returns to tell him, "I've known every one of the nine-thousand times you've played this fucking song."

"Brilliant," Eames is muttering sloppily against Arthur's ear and jaw and neck, all kind of at once somehow.

Arthur wonders for a half-second how knowing the theme song from _Beverly Hills, 90210_ for so many years could qualify him as "brilliant." But's it's only a half-second, because _why_ isn't important. It must be true, because Eames just said it, and Arthur's pretty sure he'd believe anything that could come out of Eames' stupid mouth about him tonight, or even for the rest of his life.

 

 

**2017, ARTHUR**

 

Arthur's had too much champagne.

No, that's not right. Arthur's had the absolutely, perfectly correct amount of champagne.

Arthur's cheeks are warm, and sore from smiling. His eyes are dry and tired. His head is filled with bubbles.

He looks down at his left hand and the gold band on his ring finger. His cheeks hurt.

He looks over at the coffee table, at the certificate of marriage that sits there. His cheeks positively ache.

He slides his empty champagne glass away from him across the floor. They went to Crate and Barrel on the way home today to get champagne glasses. Eames had said they could just use mugs.

 _Mugs_ , Arthur thinks. _The lovable idiot I married today wanted to drink champagne out of mugs._

Eames comes back upstairs, then, and into the room. His bare feet poke out from beneath black sweatpants. His oxford shirt's unbuttoned, his tie hanging undone around his neck.

Arthur reaches to straighten his own tie instinctively. It's not there. He rubs the back of his neck instead.

Eames looks down at him and sighs happily. He always did like to have the high ground over Arthur. Arthur laughs now at that thought.

Eames laughs then too. Probably just at Arthur. Then, Eames takes his phone off the coffee table and pokes around until Arthur hears soft bass and drums start to leak out from the Bluetooth speaker on the bookshelf behind him.

Arthur starts to say, "Turn it down," even as Eames clicks it a few notches higher.

"I fucking married you today," Eames says, reaching down and pulling Arthur up by the hands nearly too quickly for Arthur to take under all the champagne. "The neighbors will forgive me for one song."

They dance in that two-square-foot patch of floor in their living room, between the coffee table and the armchair and the bookshelf. Arthur's sore eyes find some relief in watering up. Then, he's drunk enough to sing along with all of Spyder Turner's words and impressions in Eames' ear. Eames laughs, and Arthur thinks he might also cry.

Arthur pulls back enough to see Eames’ face, and sure enough, his eyes are wet with tears, even if he is still smiling.

“What’s wrong?” Arthur asks, even though he knows there isn’t anything wrong. He knows that everything being so _right_ is what has Eames crying.

“Just thinking of all the times this song broke my heart,” Eames says. “Thinking of all the times that hearing this song made me want to hold you, just like this,” he says, pulling Arthur close again.

“You’ve been holding me for two years now,” Arthur reminds him softly, cheek pressed against Eames’ shoulder.

“It was a very long time that I thought I never would,” Eames points out. Arthur hums something soft and consoling. “Darling?” Arthur leans back again. “Thanks for marrying me.”

Arthur smiles, and even feels the tips of his ears get hot. He glances toward his left hand where it’s held by Eames’ right, and nods to the ring. “Best gift you ever gave me.”

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to the songs referenced here while writing this so many times that I nearly pulled my hair out. Nevertheless, I heartily recommend them all. It doesn't get much better than "Stand By Me," though all its descendants come mighty close.


End file.
